A Proud History

The MUA came about as an amalgamation of the Seamen's Union of Australia and the Waterside Workers' Federation in 1993.

But its roots go back to the 19th century and the formation of the first maritime union in the world - the Seamen's Union of Australia in 1872.

The same year the Sydney Wharf Labourers' Union was established at the Oriental Hotel. But the first joint industrial action taken by wharfies and seafarers was one and a half centuries before amalgamation, when in 1837 Sydney wharf labourers and seamen outfitting whaling ships held a joint stop work meeting and strike. They were demanding an extra one shilling a day in wages.

With the birth of a nation and Federation came national unionism, The Waterside Workers Federation (1902) and the Seamen's Union of Australia (1906).

Both the SUA and the WWF have always been regarded as very politicised unions (too much so for conservative politicians and business leaders); and little wonder. The first meeting of the WWF was staged in Federal Parliament House, Melbourne on 7 February 1902.

Its leader was Billy Hughes, then the secretary of the Sydney Wharf Labourers' Union and a federal member of parliament.

The WWF of Australia was born in a political environment, sponsored and led by politicians and destined to become the nation's most politicised trade union, wrote union historian Rupert Lockwood in Ship to Shore.

Hughes was later to become PM of Australia.

Other past leaders of the SUA and the WWF of note include:

• Big Jim Healy (WWF general secretary 1937-1961)
• Eliot V Elliott (SUA federal secretary 1941-1978)
• Charlie Fitzgibbon
• Tas Bull (WWF general secretary, 1985-1993
• Pat Geraghty (SUA federal secretary, 1978-1993)
• John Coombs (MUA national secretary, 1993-2002)

In the early days work was tough and conditions brutal for maritime workers.

The union's earliest battles on the now legendary Hungry Mile are recorded in books and films the union made in the 1950s.

The wharfies' history was also made into a mural in the fifties and is now on show at the Australian National Maritime Museum in Darling Harbour.

Over the years many smaller unions amalgamated with the SUA or the WWF, including the Firemen and Deckhands, Federated Shipping Clerks' Union, Cooks and others, until this day when the MUA has come to represent port workers, offshore workers, deep sea divers - even office workers on the wharves.

 SOLIDARITY

The MUA is internationally recognised for its commitment to the underdog. Aboriginal rights, national liberation struggles in South Africa, Vietnam, Indonesia and Timor, democracy movements in Chile, Fiji and Greece are just some of the causes it has championed over the years.

Many of these struggles are recorded in the union histories, including:

Black Armada and War on the Waterfront by Rubert Lockwood, which cover the maritime workers bans on Dutch armaments to Indonesia during the independence struggle in the 40s, and Port Kembla wharfies' bans on pig iron shipments to Japan in the lead up to WWII. 

The union histories Voices from the Ships, A history of the Seamen's Union and Wharfies also record solidarity and struggles, including action against apartheid in South Africa, military juntas in Greece and Chile and the war in Vietnam.

While maritime workers opposed Australian involvement in the Vietnam War, 1 in 8 seafarers died during the world wars while working in the merchant marine - their ships torpedoed or sunk by mines.